With close to 100 photographs, there is a lot to see in the new exhibition The Photographs of Homer Page: The Guggenheim Year, New York, 1949-1950. I was struck by how many different moments and different kinds of people Page chose to include in his work. Together, all of these moments show the many possibilities of the city’s dark corners and bustling intersections.
The exhibition website points out that “in recording the city so intently, Page had a larger goal in mind: to suggest nothing less than the emotional tenor of life at that time and place.” Because of Page’s work during this one year, we get to look back at a sliver of life in post-World War II New York. Lots of the photographs feature icons of the late 1940s and early 1950s—shiny Cadillacs, fashionable clothing, tongue-in-cheek advertisements. Page makes each image more meaningful by capturing how men and women interacted with these objects in their everyday lives.
I was especially interested in the ways Page shows that the city can speak to its inhabitants. Several of the photographs have graffiti or billboards in them. In one photograph, a movie usher stands in front of an advertisement featuring a beautiful blonde woman. It appears as if the woman in the ad is looking at the man, but he is oblivious. Rather than showing someone staring at the ad, Page turns the tables and shows us that the city can observe us even as we observe it.
This exhibition reveals Page’s talent for showing us familiar images in a whole new way. When you visit, let us know which images stand out to you!